In light of the fiasco regarding Spore, which I have to imagine is affecting sales in light of the over 1,000 negative reviews posted on Amazon, I have a question for the Dope.
Does the presence of DRM affect what games you purchase?
If so, what do you think you’re willing to tolerate?
For me, DRM was the deal-breaker for Spore. I work for a software company and understand why activation is used, but 3 activations and then having to be harangued by someone uncooperative is not acceptable to me. (At our company, we give people the benefit of the doubt about additional activations, you can do it by phone or email, and we’ve only ever shut one person down - and even that was a temporary ban on new activations for a month when we caught him in a blatant lie.) I can understand the number of activations, but EA’s customer support record is poor, so those two together are a dealbreaker. I want to be able to play my games years from now, and barring a firm commitment that activation will be followed by freeing up all licenses by the final patch, I’m not buying.
I wouldn’t buy an offline game that requires you to “phone home” if I’m buying a CD in most cases.
I got hold of a game that was so restrictive that I will never purchase from that developer again. I finally installed a cracked executable after 2 or 3 years of it always refusing to run every month I did try to play it. The pirates of course had a functional non-headache game to play for all those years when I was getting so pissed off I wanted to scream.
I think the issue here really is whether DRM is an effective anti-piracy measure - and in my experience it is not. Spore was available through the usual channels days before its US release - thus it’s primarily only legitimate users who are having problems. Electronic Arts is pretty much the bane of any serious game’s existence and one has to question their decision to add such invasive, and ultimately useless, copy protection software. The main problem with the whole DRM fiasco is that it usually ends up inconveniencing legal purchasers while leaving pirates (yargh) with no problems and at best slightly limited functionality.
That being said, I don’t base my decisions on DRM whatsoever, mostly because I’ve yet to personally experience problems with it. Digital distribution sidesteps this problem entirely by validating buyers -before- they’re even given access to the software, and I think this should really be the future of the PC game market.
Yes very much so, I keep my system with as few running processes at a time. Almost to a compulsion level. And I do not like any form of rootkit for the “betterment” of the industry. Yes I’m looking at you Securom
I cannot tolerate protection that just ensures you have the disk, I jump between so many games that putting in and out would annoy me. I love no-cd fixes for legitimately bought games. This new method may eliminate that but require an internet connection. Bottom line, there is not a game the hackers will not hack. You can go with the method of Sins Of A Solar Empire or you can go with the methods of Spore, Mass Effect. When you can sale 500,000 plus copies of a game that cost a million to make, you’re doing alright. And if you look at the torrent sites you will see for every comment on SOASE there is another one telling the person not to download but to pay for the game. Yeah doesn’t mean much but I think they where able to show DRM isn’t needed.
Total seeds for Spore right now: 7089 (Yes already)
Give me a game I can download or install with no hassles, nothing shutting off my legitimate virtual drives, and nothing hidden running in the background. And I will gladly pay the 50-60 for a good game. You want to load it up with shit, you just make it more likely the hackers will target it just to say HA and you will still lose the same people who would have never purchased the game anyway while alienate customers.
Full disclosure I have in the past used torrents for both legitimate and piracy torrents. I currently own bought copies of probably the best games of the last few years. (CoD4, Crysis, Oblivion etc). And everyone of them I used torrents for the nocd. and some I downloaded before I bought.
Youse guyse have said it more eloquently than I can, but yeah, SecuROM has done it for me. I don’t know that I would have a problem vis a vis the CD ROM Emulators many have had, but I also don’t want to find out.
I have been a Sim City and Sims fan from the very beginning. AAMOF, one of the reasons I bought my very first real computer was because of what’s now known as Sim City Classic. I have them all, still play Rush Hour to this day, and I have all the Sims 2 EPs, up until they started with the SecuROM crap. I even bought Free TIme and I can’t bring myself to install it, just in case. I’d love to have Apartment Life, but again, no sale.
And as much as I had been awaiting Spore for what seems like forever, well, I’m not about to buy it. It’s a shame – I’m actually someone who liked Maxis/EA. No mas
It definitely influences me. I don’t even like games that require you to put the game disk in the drive for “verification”, although I occasionally tolerate it for a while before looking for a no-CD crack. Outright spyware/malware, like SecuROM? There’s no way I’m going to let that touch my machine.
I pay for my games, and I expect to be treated like a customer, not a criminal. EA isn’t getting a dime from me.
I don’t have a problem with DRM that works. What do I consider DRM that dosen’t work? The ones that don’t play nice if a DVD-burner is installed or that don’t recognize my Administrator account and refuse to install. Or the odd instance of a game purchased via D2D insisting that I put the CD in the drive, had to find a no-CD crack for that one!
Oh, yeah, and the required Internet check-in, like what was originally announced for Spore. Our cable at home has been completely out, both TV & Internet, since Monday morning.
It’s threads like this that make me glad I’m primarily a console gamer. I was kinda-sorta considering buying Spore, but the DRM thing is a total ‘no deal’ for me. Maybe I’ll just get Civ Revolution for the 360 instead.
DRM won’t stop me from buying a game I really want, but if I am undecided, it’s a huge negative.
(To use the example both most recent and relevant, I bought Mass Effect - because I had been waiting for it ever since the console release, and I knew I’d love it - but I will not be buying Spore - despite the fact that I usually at least enjoy that sort of game and would normally grab it without thinking too much. Same DRM system, two different results; it’s a factor but not an overwhelming one.)
If I’m on the fence about getting a game DRM can tip me firmly into the ‘no thanks’ camp. It’s one of the reasons I stick largely to console gaming these days, and another perceived bullet in the throat of PC gaming. Buy Mass Effect and Bioshock for PC and have all this DRM hastle, or buy for the 360 and play whenever you want? I’ll take the 360 please, Bob.
How does one find out if a particular game has the DRM limitations? Will it be on the box somewhere, or would I have to buy the game and only find out by reading the manual?
This. I did get Bioshock recently on Steam, but I won’t buy Mass Effect on the PC, and I’m not yet enamored enough with Spore to consider one way or the other. I’m a little more than mildly perturbed that I can’t transfer Bioshock to another account now that I’m done playing it (but since it would be my husband’s account, I can just let him log in to mine.)
That’s the way I see it, too. I’ve bought The Orange Box, Bioshock (as the supposed spiritual successor to System Shock 2) and Mass Effect despite the use of Steam or DRM for these games. Any other games, and I’d prefer to go without.
I’m OK with low level DRM such as a serial number on the CD case you have to type in but beyond that I’m not a big fan. It generally just inconveniences legal users, and has no effect on pirates. It’s especially atrocious when it installs malware/spyware, or is dependant on the company staying in business or choosing to support the title indefinitely. I find it kind of creepy if a non internet game requires internet to be able to use it. If I really really wanted the game, that might overrule my distaste for certain levels of DRM, but generally it’s going to put me off. I wouldn’t get a pirated version instead tho. I’m glad that certain types of DRM haven’t made their way to the Mac yet.
I’d heard people talk about Spore and it sounded interesting.
Then I heard it was from EA and, given the problems I’ve had with their activation and with false information about system requirements, I decided not to waste my money on it.
There’s a record company from whom I don’t buy records because their anticopy systems mean I can’t play them in my music machine of choice, which happens to be my computer.
